Merging onto the Hydrogen Highway

Bush and Schwarzenegger are behind this emerging new energy source, but is it the fuel of the future?~ By JONATHAN FROCHTZWAJG ~
n June 15, Santa Monica MAYor Bob Holbrook cut the ribbon at the opening of a new hydrogen generation and fueling station and unveiled a fleet of five hydrogen-powered vehicles. While Santa Monica has a reputation for progressive thinking, in this case the city was merely in step with an accelerating effort to beef up California’s hydrogen infrastructure and build a hydrogen economy.
With air quality low, gas prices high, our globe warming, and the Middle East’s political climate red-hot, politicians are finally getting serious about replacing oil with a other sources of energy. Along with ethanol and electricity, hydrogen is one top contender for a fuel of the future. President Bush got behind that effort during his 2003 State of the Union address, in which he proposed a $1.2 billion “Freedom Fuel Initiative” to fund research for hydrogen-powered vehicles. A year later, Governor Schwarzenegger stepped up, announcing in 2004, “I am going to encourage the building of a hydrogen highway to take us to the environmental future.”
At the core of the hydrogen economy is the idea that the internal combustion engine will be replaced with fuel cells, battery-like devices that use hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and emit only harmless water vapor. But there remain problems. First, fuel cells are currently too expensive. And while hydrogen might be the most abundant element in the universe, most of our planet’s hydrogen is locked in water or hydrocarbon fuels like petroleum and natural gas, so most of the usable hydrogen is extracted from fossil fuels. Jason Mark, Vehicles Director for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an independent organization that focuses on research and policy work on environmental and security issues, said this is a stepping stone.
“It’s not as clean as we need to ultimately get,” Mark said, “but it is an improvement compared to today’s vehicles.”
In the wake of Schwarzenegger’s enthusiasm came the “California Hydrogen Highway Network Action Plan” announcing the governor’s “Vision 2010,” which called for “every Californian to have access to hydrogen fuel along the state’s major highways.”
In April 2004, the governor gave his action plan teeth, signing an executive order demanding the California Environmental Protection Agency work with the state legislature and other agencies to create a blueprint for transition to a hydrogen economy.
The two-volume, 144-page blueprint was released in May 2005. A month later, state legislators signed into law Senate Bill 76, a budget trailer bill that asked the Department of Food and Agriculture to establish standards for hydrogen fuel and provided $6.5 million in co-funding for the establishment of three hydrogen fuel stations, as well as the lease and purchase of hydrogen fuel vehicles.
Since then, a sprawling bureaucracy of government, industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations has raced to bring about the governor’s vision, with the California Air Resources Board distributing the funding. CARB spokesperson Karen Caesar says there are about 25 hydrogen fueling stations in California, though not all are public. As for demonstration vehicles, she said, the state doesn’t own any because hydrogen-powered prototype vehicles are so expensive that they are strictly controlled by their manufacturers.
“In our view, hydrogen has the best capability to simultaneously address a number of key issues that affect California, including smog, climate change, and energy security,” says Caesar. “That being said, we are not in any way excluding other options. This is not a one-solution organization; there is room for biofuels, electricity, and other options.”
Jason Mark and UCS were part of an external advisory board to the hydrogen highway project, and he agrees that hydrogen is only one of the options that should stay on the table. But just when can we expect the gilded hydrogen future to arrive?
“Mmmmm, the trillion dollar question,” says Mark. Automakers say fuel cell cars could be commercially viable in about a decade.
Asked whether influential oil and auto companies could stand in the way of progress, as filmmaker Chris Paine posited they did in the case of the electric car in his documentary, Who Killed The Electric Car?, Mark gives a measured response.
“My experience in watching the auto and oil industries over considerable amounts of time is that the government is always going to give them a nudge,” said Mark. “We might need a combination of carrots and sticks.”
So the hydrogen economy isn’t right around the corner, but the state’s hydrogen highway project plods on. Contracts were recently awarded to Cal State University L.A., Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego City Schools to build hydrogen refueling stations, and to General Motors, Quantum Technologies, and the Ford Motor Company to build hydrogen-powered vehicles for demonstration.